Lawrence's Hunger Games costar Donald Sutherland introduced her to the novel one day while the two of them were doing what actors do most on set—waiting. "We were talking about Walt Whitman and Leaves of Grass, and he mentioned this novel, which he gave me on his last day of shooting." The familiar story of Anna, who naively sacrifices her comfortable (and stifling) marriage for true love and finds herself cut off from everything she knows, was a surprise to Lawrence. "I really wasn't expecting to like it. I thought I wouldn't want to finish an 800-page book, but then I started slowing down and reading the same chapters over and over. You fall in love with the characters; you grow up with them."
